Tips to get better data into SalesforcePosted By:Maria KelleyFriday, December 2, 2016

You are only as good as your data. Your Salesforce environment can have a great design, but if no one is entering data, all you have is an empty shell. Ask yourself some questions:

1. Is it easy to enter information?

It is very important to make it easy for sales reps to keep their deals and contacts up to date. Every sales rep has a different way of doing this—they might update as they go or choose one day a week to input the status on every deal. Unfortunately, waiting to do a week’s worth at once can have bad results. First, a week of updates takes time—time that is not spent selling. The second issue is the later information is entered into the system, the more inaccurate it gets. It is very hard to remember what happened a week ago.

How can you make it easier? One very big solution to making it easier for your reps is having mobile access. Giving them mobile tools with a friendly user interface and two-way data flow from various sources can be a tremendous time saver.

Other tips:

·When entering data, it is critical to have related fields listed next to each other.

·Make sure that when you tab from field to field, it flows the right direction (down vs. across the page). The goal is to get the user to find the record and update it as quickly as possible in a manner that makes sense.

There is more data in Salesforce than just what a rep manually enters. For instance, email, calendaring, meeting notes, etc. all create valuable data about what is actually happening—and working—in the field. This data can deliver a new level of insight if you simply capture it.

Actually this ‘living data’ can give context to what’s been entered into the CRM and provide a more realistic picture of what’s actually happening. It also gives managers an instant view into progress and next steps. Since the data is created automatically by reps doing what they do, managers don’t need to rely on reports or wait for a meeting to get a play-by-play report on deal progress and status.

3. What about data insights?

Applying data science is the key to better decisions, clearer priorities, and a sales forecast management can trust. For example, you could study the data a see that an increase in the number of emails sent correlates with an increase in deal size. That lets a rep and manager decide whether to stay the course, double down on effort, or push to next quarter. And it means cutting forecast risk. When your users see that the information is actually useful to them, the time it takes to enter information is worth it.